CampingKlok
by knockoutmouse
Summary: The band goes camping. Nathan gets hurt. Can Pickles help him? Also, Murderface gets a little too involved when he walks in on the guitarists. Oneshot. N/P, T/S, and T/S/MF.


**Disclaimer:** I still don't own anything, please don't sue me or I'll be a sad mouse.

**Contains:** Sex, profanity, and a bit of voyeurism. Possibly a bit of dubcon, depending how you look at it.

**PSA:** Hey, kids, have safe sex! Also, if you go hiking/camping, don't be stupid like our fictional protagonists here, and practice basic safety and self-care measures.

**A/N:** 1) My original title for this was "DethCamping." I then realized that this was a rather unfortunate choice, debated for a while, and changed it.

2) I've tried to avoid using butchered Swedish/Norwegian this time, so dialogue in italics indicates a foreign language being spoken. Also, I've pretty much given up on writing Pickles with much of an accent at this point.

3) I'm aware than an interrobang is not a respectable punctuation mark. Murderface, however, is not (or more likely wouldn't care).

4) If anyone cares, the setting is a real place.

A camping trip would be like a vacation, Offdensen had said. Immersing themselves in the serenity of nature, he'd said. Getting away from the stresses of everyday life—and away from the media frenzy surrounding the destruction caused by their latest concert in the Czech Republic. It had resulted in $17 million in damages and a small-scale war between a handful of central European countries. The band thought it was brutal. Offdensen thought it was bad publicity.

So here they were at this campsite, a state park at the northern edge of the Appalachian Mountains, with nothing but a few tents, a small squadron of Klokateers, and all the weapons and supplies that said Klokateers could carry.

It was the third day now, and they had called Offdensen that morning to complain about the heat, the mosquitos, and the lack of internet, booze, and sluts.

"Well, boys, why don't you, ah, try to get out for a little while today?" His voice was fuzzy and distant on the speaker of Murderface's Dethphone. The cell reception there wasn't good either. "Take some sandwiches, go on a hike, perhaps swim in the river. I'm told the hills there are very, ah, pleasant."

The band had turned around to look at the hills on both sides of the river; most descended steeply toward the turbulent green water, and were covered in dark, forbidding pines. They looked anything but pleasant.

"De hills looks brutals," said Skwisgaar. "Good for albums covers, maybe, but not for de climbings."

"Dood, these assholes here don't even know who we are," Pickles complained. "Some chick told me the other day thet they ain't into metal around here."

"Yes, well, perhaps that's for the best," said Offdensen.

"It'sch like _Deliveransche_!" said Murderface. "If we go out in the hillsch, I know at leascht one of usch is going to end up schquealing like a piggy before we get back." As he considered this for a moment longer, his eyes travelled thoughtfully over to Toki, who hurriedly moved to stand behind Skwisgaar.

"Do nots worries," the Swede whispered to him. "If anyones will be making you squeal likes de piggy, it ams will be me."

Toki appeared only slightly comforted by this assertion. Murderface, on the other hand, had an unmistakable expression of disappointment.

"Fine, whatever," said Nathan to Offdensen. "Just promise that we'll be out of here soon. I don't see why we couldn't have just stayed in Mordhaus anyway."

"So that I can truthfully say that you are, ah, _unavailable_ to comment upon this latest debacle," Offdensen replied. "The reports seem to be dying down, though—we're suppressing what we can—so the day after tomorrow should no longer be problematic should you care to return then."

#

Despite Murderface's warning (or possibly suggestion), the band decided to venture out for a short trip up one of the hills, eschewing the offer of the head Gear to send a few armed guards along. Murderface threw some insect repellant, sunscreen, and sandwiches into a knapsack, and they set off up the hill. A half hour later, it had become apparent that their boots, while useful for tramping through the undergrowth, were not the most comfortable shoes to go for a long walk in. Pickles, with his usual tennis shoes, did not have this problem, but now had wet feet from sinking an inch or two into the mud in one of the trail's wet spots.

They also hadn't reckoned on the temperature. The canopy of trees seemed to hold in the heat, and it was far more humid in the woods than it had been back at their campsite.

"Almost as bads as the jungle in South Americas," murmured Toki.

Nathan swatted at a mosquito for what felt like the fiftieth time, and stopped to rummage in the knapsack, which had been pawned off on him by Murderface almost immediately. He found the insect repellant, only to discover that it was nearly empty when he tried to spray some on. Then he realized something else.

"Hey, Murderface."

"What?"

"You didn't pack any water, you dipshit."

Murderface, at the head of the expedition, paused and turned back to face him.

"Yeah, well, none of you asscholes reminded me, either," he grumbled.

"That's because we assumed that you'd display a, you know, basic level of competence," Nathan snapped. The heat was putting him in a bad mood; already his shirt was damp with sweat, and his hair was sticking to his face.

"Doods, it's cool," said Pickles, "There's s'posed to be a bunch of streams all through here; that chick the other day said so. Plenty of water, just gahtta find 'em, thet's all."

"We coulds always be turning backs," suggested Skwisgaar. "It ams rather unpleas-skants up here." He was tired of getting low-hanging twigs tangled in his hair; unfortunately, he was nowhere near being taller than any of _these_ trees.

"Look," said Murderface, unfolding the small map that he'd brought along (more because he'd forgotten that he had it, rather than out of actual foresight). "It schays here that we're almost to the highescht point of the trail, and that'sch halfway to the main highway on the other schide of the park."

The others looked up doubtfully.

"It am lookings like a long way up still."

"The trail doeschn't go all the way to the top," Murderface explained. "Schee?" He offered the map to the two Scandinavians.

"Wait a second," said Nathan, "If the trail comes out at the other side of the park, then how are we getting back to our place?"

"There ams a bridge across the river there," Skwisgaar pointed at the map. "Then another trails on the other sides which goes back."

"I say we should go back now," the singer insisted.

"Come on, let'sch at leascht go to the highescht schpot up here," Murderface argued. "It'sch schupposed to be a nische view."

"Ja, I wants to see down over the side of the mountains," said Toki. "Ams we can doing this?" He looked at Skwisgaar with a childlike pout.

"Ja, of course we can ams doing this, little Toki," said the Swede, with a glower at Nathan suggesting that he had better indulge the Norwegian.

"Ugh, fine," said Nathan. "Whatever. I don't want to hear you assholes complaining when you're tired and thirsty, then."

The group started moving again, Murderface leading the way, the Scandinavians behind him, Pickles hanging back to walk next to Nathan.

"It is supposed'ta be pretty up there," he said apologetically, hoping to soothe the obviously irritated frontman.

Nathan merely grunted.

"Hey, c'mon, Nate, don't be like thet," said Pickles.

"I don't mean to be an ass or anything," he grudgingly apologized. "It's just that I'm, uh...all hot and sweaty, and I don't want to be here. It's putting me in a bad mood. When we get back, I'm gonna need, like, a hundred beers."

"Just relax," said the drummer, running a hand lightly over the bigger man's back. "We'll be back soon."

Nathan shrugged his hand away. "Don't. It's too hot."

"Fine." Pickles started after the others. "Be like thet, dood."

"No, wait."

He stopped and turned. "Nate, come on. We gahtta catch up with the others."

"Hang on, I want to tell you something...uh, something _private_."

"Okey?" asked Pickles, raising one pierced eyebrow at him.

"I, uh, I _am_ sorry. I, uh...shit, this is embarrassing." The singer looked down at his feet, trying to formulate the words he wanted, and then back up at the redhead, fixing him with his green eyes. "Part of why I'm so on edge is that we, you and I, haven't had any time to...you know, lately."

"What, 'cause we haven't been able to, like, fool around?"

"Yeah."

"Dood, it's only been like three days."

"Yeah. Three days." Nathan scratched at the dirt of the path with the toe of his boot. "Three days of being around the rest of the guys _every second_, even when we're sleeping, and I can't even touch you."

Pickles laid a hand on his arm. "It'll be back to normal soon."

"Not soon enough." Nathan pulled the smaller man toward him and kissed him, only to feel Pickles pushing away from him, out of his grasp.

"Dood. Not here. Anybody could see us. Besides, we really should catch up."

Nathan exhaled heavily, scowled, and followed Pickles up the hill. Yeah, he was going to need a hell of a lot of alcohol once they got back to camp. Except there wasn't any. Fuck. Well, they could bribe or threaten the Klokateers into arranging transportation to one of the dive bars in town, this stupid shitty redneck town where nobody listened to metal and where Pickles didn't want to be seen with him, or at least didn't want them to be seen, which was more or less the same thing when you came down to it, wasn't it? Maybe he didn't like being with him now. Maybe—

He crashed into Pickles and nearly knocked him over, not having noticed that the smaller man had stopped in front of him.

"Oh, uh, sorry. Why'd you—"

He was silenced as the drummer kissed him.

#

On the far side of the clearing, Skwisgaar and Toki stood looking down over the edge of the huge rock that was at ground level in the clearing, but projected out over the hillside, giving them a sharp view of the deep split between this hill and the next.

"Wowee," breathed Toki. "It ams almost like the mountains at homes, huh?"

"Nej," said Skwisgaar. "Our mountains am much bigger. Pfft, dese amnest little crysbabies mountains."

"Also there ams no snows," Toki agreed despite himself.

"Schtupid Schkandis," muttered Murderface from behind them; he'd refused to come out onto the rock ledge with them. "Why don't you juscht go back if the mountains are scho much better, douschebags?" he said louder. "I'm gonna go take a pissch, and Nathan and Pickles better be here by the time I come back." He turned and crashed through the dense vegetation, quickly vanishing into the forest.

"Do you think he ams will find his way back?" asked Toki with mild worry.

Skwisgaar shrugged. "It ams of little concern to me."

At that moment came an unexpectedly cool breeze, sweeping the men's hair back from their faces and causing the thin Swede to shiver a little. With a quick look around to make sure that the bassist had really gone, Toki slid an arm around Skwisgaar's waist and pulled him closer.

"_Are you cold?"_ he asked in Norwegian.

Skwisgaar shook his head. _"No. Well, just a little."_ He paused, looking out over the river without really looking. _"I don't want to think of Sweden now."_

"_But we are here now,"_ Toki reminded him, not liking the worry line that had appeared on the other man's brow. _"Think of something else."_

"Ja," said Skwisgaar, shaking himself a little. "Ja, you ams right." Toki noticed only by the quick movement of the icy blue eyes that the blonde checked the clearing for Murderface's presence before he wrapped his arms around the Norwegian and leaned in for a brief kiss that was longer and more passionate than either of them had anticipated.

"_I have missed being able to do this,"_ said Skwisgaar, his expression softening.

"Mmmm," agreed Toki, resting his head against the taller man's shoulder and lightly kissing his neck. _"I want to fuck you,"_ he whispered, before nibbling at the other man's earlobe and eliciting a groan from him.

"_Don't tease me."_

"_I'm not teasing."_ Toki blinked up at him innocently. _"I'll suck your dick right now."_

Skwisgaar stared at him. _"Nej. It's too risky. The others will be back any minute. Although..." _ He trailed off, considering. He never was one to turn down a blowjob, but still, here and now—?

"_Ja, we might get caught,"_ Toki agreed, kissing his throat again and moving one hand down to grope the blonde's hardened member through his jeans. Skwisgaar gasped, his eyes opening wide. What had gotten into his normally sedate lover?

"_It's been nearly a week since we've done this,"_ said Toki, dropping to his knees, as if reading Skwisgaar's mind. It _had_ been almost a week—they'd managed a few minutes alone together in the hotel room the day before the disastrous show in Prague, but since then, they'd had no privacy at all.

For about two seconds, he considered protesting again. Within that time span, however, Toki had unzipped Skwisgaar's pants, and now ran his tongue along the ridge of his left hip, causing him to entirely abandon this idea.

#

"Well, seeing as we're alone..." murmured Nathan, raising an eyebrow suggestively at Pickles.

"Mmm, you know I wanna, Nate, but seriously, we gahtta catch up with the guys."

"Give me thirty seconds and I bet I can change your mind."

"Unlikely, dood."

Nathan rested on big hand on the redhead's slender waist, letting the other fall lower to roughly massage his ass. Pickles kissed him again and moved closer, letting his cock press against the other man's muscular thigh.

"All right, maybe just for a minute longer," he said, breaking away from the kiss.

"I told you." Nathan stepped backward, one hand reaching behind him searching for a suitable tree to lean against. Pickles might've been a small guy, but when the mood took him, he could get aggressive, and Nathan secretly enjoyed it when the drummer pushed him back against the wall.

That thought distracted him just long enough that he didn't realize until too late that there was no tree behind him, and suddenly there was also no ground under his right foot.

His first instinct was to shove Pickles away from him, hard, and this he accomplished successfully, knocking him to the ground. His second instinct, _not falling_, met with considerably less success.

All he heard was Pickles's enraged shout of "What the _fuck_?" as he tumbled backward, back over the steel cable that was a useless excuse of a safety fence, and then all he knew was that his back hit the ground of the hillside and he slid through the thin, damp soil and dead twigs and sharp, shallowly-buried stones and he thought _that_ was painful, and then all at once there was _pain_ as his shoulder slammed into a large rock. He heard himself cry out, but the pain threw him into action, and he grabbed at the rock, mainly with his left hand as he found that moving his right arm was incredibly painful. His fingers slipped on the rock's mossy surface, but between that and struggling enough to dig the toes of his boots into the surprisingly soft earth, he managed to stop his momentum, and lay there for a moment, eyes shut, hoping he could catch his breath and tell whether his brain was right side up.

"Jesus, Nate," shouted Pickles from what seemed like a long way up. "You all right?"

Reluctantly, the singer opened his eyes and looked up to see Pickles's worried face staring down at him from over the edge of the trail, about ten feet above. _Worried_ wasn't quite the right word, though. _Horrified _was more like it.

Despite the burning waves of pain going through his arm and shoulder, Nathan forced himself to take stock of the situation. The hill was steep—very steep—but at least it wasn't a sheer drop like in some other spots. He could let go of the rock, probably, without sliding down any further. Probably he could make his way back up—or at least he could if he had the use of both arms.

"Nate? _Answer me!_"

Only then did he realize that he'd never replied. "Yeah," he called out, finding that his voice gave away how shaken he felt. "Yeah, I'm here."

"Dood, I see that. You okay?"

Slowly, slowly, Nathan uncurled his fingers from their death grip on the rock. "Well, I'm, uh, I'm alive."

#

Murderface tiptoed along the treeline, keeping well hidden, and careful to make as little noise as possible. He was going to sneak up on the others—maybe to see what they were saying about him—but mostly to jump out and give them a scare. Then, of course, to make fun of them for screaming like little girls afterwards.

"Where are they?" he muttered to himself, unable at first to see the guitarists where they'd been when he left them. Maybe Pickles and Nathan had caught up. They'd probably all left without him, the bastards! But no, what was this? He heard someone speaking. Skwisgaar. His voice was low and unintelligible. He was speaking Swedish.

Murderface crept closer, now parting the branches of a gooseberry bush so that he could see what his bandmates were up to.

What he did see nearly made him cry out in shock, but he prevented himself just in time. Toki knelt before Skwisgaar, one hand resting on the blonde's hip, the other...around the base of his dick? Which Toki was sucking?

Murderface was disgusted. And aroused. These two emotions frequently went together for him.

"No..." he whispered. No. This wasn't happening. He wasn't standing in the bushes, watching the lead guitarist get sucked off by the rhythm guitarist. And he definitely didn't—or at least shouldn't—have a throbbing hard-on thinking about it.

Except that he did.

He still couldn't make out what they were saying—probably weren't speaking English anyway. Now Toki paused. Skwisgaar lowered himself into a sitting position, and Toki crawled closer, taking him in his mouth once again. The Swede moaned loudly.

Murderface found himself unbearably turned on. Taking care to make no sound, he moved closer still, watching in fascination and rubbing himself through his shorts. Truly it was a lovely picture: The sky had gone cloudy, not that any of them cared about the sky at the moment, and a light yet cool breeze rustled the leaves of the bassist's hiding spot. Skwisgaar now leaned all the way back, lying flat on the rock under the open sky while Toki crouched between his spread legs, his head moving slowly up and down on the blonde's large cock.

Murderface unzipped his shorts, already sticky with pre-ejaculate, and took his dick in his hand, stroking quickly and efficiently. He watched as the scene in the clearing became even more interesting. Skwisgaar sat up a little and ran his hands through Toki's hair, talking to him desperately in Swedish and trying to push the brunette down further on his cock.

Toki pushed him away lightly, but in another minute, Skwisgaar was doing it again. Toki sat up and said something in Norwegian in a tone somewhere between playful and dangerous. They'd better not be stopping, thought Murderface, disappointed. He slowed the movement of his hand, watching. No, they weren't stopping. Toki's eyes darted around the clearing, fortunately not seeing Murderface in the woods quite close to him. He turned back to Skwisgaar, removed his own belt, crawled forward to sit on the blonde's chest, and bound his hands above his head. Skwisgaar obviously liked it—he began to tremble visibly, and thrust his hips upward although Toki was not in a position that he could make contact with.

_That_ was much better. Murderface found himself getting even more excited now, seeing the arrogant blonde being dominated. He almost wished he could join in.

Toki slid back down and resumed going down on the other guitarist. Skwisgaar cried out, struggled a little against the leather binding his wrists, and thrashed around beautifully. It occurred to Murderface that the rough rock surface was probably scratching up his back, maybe even making him bleed a little. At that thought, he actually began to drool a little. He stroked faster. Skwisgaar gasped and arched his back off the ground, revealing a few scrapes that were, in fact, bleeding a little. Murderface came.

#

"What—what the hell even happened?" asked Pickles frantically. He was still dazed from being thrown to the ground by the powerful singer, but now it felt like his stomach was somewhere up in his chest, and he could feel his own pulse, quick and heavy in his neck.

"I—I fell," said Nathan simply. "Give me, uh, give me a minute and I'll see if I can get back up."

"Let me help." Pickles held on to one of the thin pines lining the trail and started to swing one foot over the divide between level ground and the dangerous incline of the hillside.

"No!" said Nathan quickly. "I mean, no, stay there." He moved slightly, trying to lift his right arm to find something higher up to hold onto, but cut the movement short and grimaced in pain. "You can't help me, I'm too heavy. I'll only pull you down."

"Dood, please, let me do _something_," begged Pickles, his nervous fingers somehow finding their way to his hair, tangling into his dreadlocks.

"Just stay there. I don't want you, uh, to get hurt." Nathan forced himself up and moved awkwardly on his knees until he was above the rock that had stopped his descent. He didn't feel confident that he could balance enough to walk normally up the steep hillside, and the more he moved around in the pliable earth, the muddier its consistency became, adding a treacherous slickness to the mix.

For the sake of doing something, Pickles took out his Dethphone, and, as he'd suspected, found that there was absolutely no signal. He put it back in his pocket and squatted on the ground between two of the guideposts connected by the metal cable, watching Nathan's slow, painful progress toward him. He thought he was going to have a heart attack when the singer's foot slipped in the mud, but then Nathan steadied himself by grabbing hold of one of the scraggy pines.

"Oh Gahd," said Pickles. "I can't watch this." He took out his flask of Scotch—_medicinal_ Scotch—and, his hand shaking, took a long swig of it. It did little to steady his nerves. He took his eyes off Nathan and found that they fixed involuntarily on the river below. If Nathan wasn't careful—

He shuddered.

#

Murderface had expected the guitarists to be done soon, but they weren't.

"_Skwis, why are you taking so long to finish? Am I doing something wrong?" _asked Toki, continuing to stroke Skwisgaar's cock.

"_Nej, it's good. I don't know what the problem—"_

They both looked up in utter shock as the bass player crashed through the thicket just next to them.

"Jeschusch, aren't you pervy little Schkandisch done yet?"

Skwisgaar could only stare up at him and mouth like a fish, not making any words. The possibility of getting caught had been a thrill, yes, but he hadn't wanted to _actually_ get caught, and especially not by Murderface.

"Oh, sorries, Moidaface," said Toki casually. "I thought we would ams being done by now, but he amn'ts nots getting off."

"Well, hurry up." Murderface could not believe that he was really having this conversation, but Toki's attitude about the whole matter was infectious; he couldn't bring himself to act as if anything out of the ordinary was happening.

"You wants he should be helping?" Toki asked Skwisgaar.

The Swede's eyes got huge. "What? Nej!" The thought of Murderface joining in was enough to turn his stomach.

"You might likes it," Toki coaxed him.

"Nej, let's just...let's be cons-clude-skings dis at another time," said Skwisgaar. Privately, he agreed that he might like it at another time and place, but not when they'd been walked in on, and not when there were still more of their bandmates around. Not that Murderface would be his first choice for a threesome, obviously, but—

Murderface looked down at the blonde, hands tied, a faint blush across his face, his bottom lip stained with a tiny trickle of blood where he'd bitten it too hard...

"Fuck thisch! Let'sch do it."

Between him and Toki, they managed to get the only-slightly-struggling guitarist into a standing position. Murderface held him relatively still while Toki went back to sucking his dick. Murderface licked the side of Skwisgaar's neck. Skwisgaar didn't look too happy about this, but changed his mind when the bassist began to bite his shoulder—a little harder than he was used to, perhaps.

Murderface moved one hand up across Skwisgaar's chest to pinch his nipples—again, _hard_—and let the other travel down behind him to caress his balls.

"Nej," said Skwisgaar. "Mmmmm. Ja—Nej." His eyes were open wide; he was torn between enjoying it or protesting, then found that he was disappointed when the bassist's hand disappeared from between his legs.

Murderface had only paused momentarily, though—he licked his fingers, coating them as well as he could in saliva, and reached back down, this time tracing around the taller man's opening, lightly, almost tickling, then pressing into him, first with one finger, then, almost insistently, adding a second.

Skwisgaar grimaced in discomfort, but the minor pain was mostly overridden by the sensation of Toki tonguing the head of his cock. After a bit, he began to enjoy the way the bassist's short, pudgy fingers filled him.

Murderface tried for a better angle, feeling like he was going to break his wrist in the process, but eventually finding what he was looking for. Skwisgaar threw his head back with a gasp, which Murderface took as an invitation to bite and suck at his throat as the blonde whimpered.

"Oh God, ja, ja," he moaned, letting himself sink back against Murderface, forcing the shorter man to support his weight—he could barely stand now as it was, being assaulted, so to speak, from both front and back. He couldn't concentrate fully on what either of them was doing, but the combination was driving him mad. He couldn't take much more. If he didn't come soon, he was simply going to lose it, with Toki's hot, wet mouth around him, moving fast now, flicking his tongue against the underside of his head, and Murderface's fingers inside him, moving in and out, prodding him in just the right spot. He cried out now, unintelligibly, unable to stop himself, over and over again, cried out because the pleasure was too intense and he could feel too many sensations at once. Then, finally, Toki's and Murderface's movements coordinated just a touch more than they had been, and it was just a fraction more unbearable, and he came.

#

Nathan had made it nearly back to level of the trail. Pickles, sitting cross-legged on the ground, reached out to help him the rest of the way up.

"No," said Nathan.

"But—"

"_No."_ The singer seized the steel cable in his left hand and dragged himself forward, trying to avoid moving his other arm. For a moment, both men were afraid that one of the wooden posts would be uprooted as the wire stretched taut, but no, for once something had been installed correctly. It seemed painfully slow to the drummer, but eventually Nathan lay, exhausted, on the path next to Pickles.

"Dood, you okay?" asked Pickles, knowing full well that the answer was no, but that Nathan would say yes.

"Yeah. Mostly. Just let me, uh, breathe for a minute."

Pickles moved so that Nathan's head rested in his lap, and tenderly brushed a few strands of damp black hair from his dirt-smudged face. "Nate?"

"Yeah?"

"I was, like, really scared for a minute there."

"Yeah, well, so was I."

That statement made Pickles's stomach feel icy, and also a little nauseous, so he had another sip of Scotch, except that "sip" was not the right word for "draining perhaps a quarter of the flask's contents in one go." The ice went away. The nausea didn't.

"Here, this'll make you feel better." He offered the flask to Nathan.

"I don't—eh, the hell with it." Nathan sat up and took a drink of the liquor.

Pickles rummaged in the knapsack that had fallen, forgotten, next to the path. "Here, you should put some of this on," he said, handing Nathan the antibiotic gel from the first-aid kit that Murderface had neglected to toss out in favor of sandwiches, as he appeared to have done with everything else.

"Uh...that's not really going to help my arm much."

"No. For this." He gently touched the raw scrape along Nathan's jaw.

"Oh. Well, you do it."

Pickles obliged, dabbing the gel onto the singer's face and a few additional lacerations on the arm that Nathan allowed him to touch.

"All right. We've got to get back."

"What about the rest of the guys?" asked Pickles as Nathan stood.

"They can go on without us. We're going back. It can't be much more than a mile, and at least we already know what the trail is like this way."

"Ah, good point, dood. Well, let's go then." Pickles stood, a little too quickly, it seemed, because the world started to spin a little more than it should have in proportion to the amount of liquor he'd been drinking.

"Ooh," he said, stumbling against Nathan. "I feel a little dizzy."

"Try and walk it off," he said gruffly. "We have to get going."

"Right," said Pickles, and finished off the Scotch, trailing behind the singer.

Nathan walked quickly, trying to ignore the pain in his arm and shoulder and, by this point, everywhere else as well. His head ached, and his feet ached, and every step seemed to grow more difficult and painful. But they had to keep going; they'd be back soon, and he'd be damned if they didn't go to a motel where they could shower and sleep in a real bed and get properly wasted.

"Nate?" came Pickles's voice from behind him, less plaintive than pleading this time.

He turned. "What?"

"I, uh," Pickles seemed to sway a little. His face, Nathan noticed, had gone a rather alarming shade. "I don't feel so—"

Before he finished the sentence, his eyes fluttered shut and he fell.

"_Shit!"_ Nathan managed to catch him clumsily before he hit the ground. Great. Just great. There was no way they'd make it back now. It wasn't that Pickles was heavy, but if, as he suspected, his arm was broken, he'd have a hell of a time carrying him.

He made up his mind quickly. The longer they stayed out here, the worse things would become. He'd have to try.

#

"Probablies we am shoulds go find the others," said Skwisgaar as he and Toki finished buckling their respective belts.

"Yeah," said Murderface. "I wonder what thosche asscholes have been up to. Probably they schneaked off and went back to camp."

"Perhaps we should just be goings back," said Toki. "It ams beginning to gets dark, after all."

The others looked up at the sky. It was only midafternoon, but the clouds were dark and foreboding, and promised rain.

"Yeah, schcrew thisch. What did we want to go hiking for anyway?"

Murderface started back in the direction they had come. Skwisgaar and Toki followed, arms twined around each other's waists.

"_That was good, ja?"_ asked Toki.

"_Mmm, ja. Slightly unexpected, but good."_

"_Maybe we should involve him again after we go home,"_ the Norwegian suggested.

"_Ja, perhaps, but I would prefer Pickle over this one."_

"We ams will be seeing," said Toki, pulling Skwisgaar closer in a brief hug.

Murderface rolled his eyes even though he couldn't see them. They were probably being all lovey-dovey in Swedish or something. It was enough to make him sick, notwithstanding the fact that he'd just been involved in a threesome with them.

They walked on in relative silence for perhaps ten minutes, although, more accurately, Murderface was silent while the guitarists spoke quietly in their respective languages about what they wanted to do when they got back to civilization.

"_I'm going to take a bath,"_ said Skwisgaar. _"For an hour. Maybe two hours."_

"_I'm going to eat some pickled herring, and a whole bowl of candy."_

"_But you know that candy is bad for you, little Toki."_

"_Ja..."_

"_I will buy you a whole case of gummibjörnar,"_ Skwisgaar proclaimed, _"if you will keep giving blowjobs like that."_

Toki only grinned in response.

"Hey, guysch, look!" Murderface pointed to the path ahead. Nathan trudged along, leaning heavily to one side with Pickles slung over one shoulder.

"Nat'ans!" cried Toki.

Nathan turned, careful not to move too quickly and disarrange the drummer. "Jesus. There you are. One of you dickheads want to give me a hand?"

"What am happens, Nat'an?" asked Skwisgaar as he lifted the still-unconscious Pickles down from Nathan's shoulder.

"He just, like, passed out. Come on, we've got to get him back."

Skwisgaar and Toki began to carry Pickles between them, following Nathan.

"No, you guys go on ahead. I can't move fast. Uh...long story."

"Okies," agreed Skwisgaar languidly, and they started off down the path ahead of Nathan and Murderface, only to be met around the next bend by a half-dozen Gears.

"My lords," said the head of the group. "You did not return, so we were sent to search for you."

"Looks like that problem ams solved, den."

#

Nathan sat in an armchair in Pickles's hospital room with a cast and a sling for his broken arm and collarbone. The drummer had been treated for dehydration while the singer's bones were being set, and had been asleep by the time Nathan had come to his room, so now he sat in the uncomfortable armchair, drinking a cup of weak tea from the vending machine and wondering whether Pickles would wake before he himself drifted off to sleep. Toki, Skwisgaar, and Murderface had vanished to the best hotel in town, which wasn't saying much, considering that the place didn't even have a Holiday Inn. At least somebody would get some decent sleep tonight. Offdensen had been notified, too, and had arranged for them to return to Mordhaus first thing in the afternoon. Thank God for small mercies.

Pickles stirred in his bed. Nathan waited, not certain whether he was simply moving in his sleep. But no, now his eyes opened.

"Nate?"

"Yeah. I'm here."

"What happened, dood?"

"You got dehydrated. From, uh, not drinking water. And then drinking alcohol."

"Huh. That sucks, don't it?" he said conversationally.

"Yeah."

"We never did get to do anything, either," he mused.

"It's fine. I'm just, uhhh..." the inarticulate frontman found his face growing uncomfortably warm. "I'm, uh, glad you didn't, you know, hamburger time."

Pickles laid a hand on his and didn't say anything.

"I mean, I could, uh, blow you right now, if you want."

"That's tempting, dood, but I think I'll take a raincheck."


End file.
